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At four feet, seven inches, she towered over him — and no amount of drinking milk seemed to help.

It frustrated Aaron, then 7, until he learned that astronauts are up to 2 feet taller in space, so he set off to do what most little brothers would — outgrow his sister.

In time, he beat her, but he hasn’t outgrown his goal of reaching the depths of the solar system.

The 32-year-old is an astronaut-in-training, racking up experience in hopes of finding his way to space — a feat far from simple when you consider how seldom there are open calls for astronauts.

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When those few opportunities arise, floods of applicants come forward, said Brendan Quine, an associate professor at York University’s department of physics and astronomy.

Classes he teaches are filled with astronaut hopefuls, some of whom are even willing to work for commercial companies expected to launch people into space.

With spacecraft not yet taking off with humans on board every day, Persad reckons his odds of blasting off are “hard to gauge.”

Plus, there’s no list breaking down exactly what should be on your resume to secure an astronaut career, so he’s braving the rigours of every space experience he can nab, hoping to prove he has the stamina to handle zero gravity.

Vying for a chance to blast off isn’t all about how much you bench-press, but about your body’s tolerance towards pressure and extenuating circumstances.

Quine said astronauts, even those with fighter pilot backgrounds, have been prone to getting sick in space.

Beyond the right physique, it takes a combination of education and skill. For Persad, that’s meant two degrees, including a PhD in mechanical and industrial engineering, working with the Canadian Space Agency and time in the pool earning his scuba licence.

Then there was his involvement with Project PoSSUM, a non-profit research project studying noctilucent clouds filled with ice crystals, which are too low to be accessed from space, but too high to be reached in a regular aircraft.

He has also spent time in an altitude chamber and on parabolic flights, putting his body to the test.

“Imagine a roller-coaster doing a complete vertical loop. We did those with an aircraft,” he said. “The aircraft goes up and then down, so you get one second of freefall — so everything in the aircraft that is not tied down floats, and we get to experience microgravity.”

Most of his friends and family found the adrenaline-junkie experiences cool, but Persad, a chief science officer at Astronauts4Hire, admits he doesn’t tell his parents “about the dangerous things.”

“Flying an aircraft upside-down would probably not sit well with them,” he said, laughing.

That might mean he will keep quiet about one of the final requirements he needs to nab an instrument-rating pilot’s licence: mastering taking off and landing with only the use of his instruments, while wearing a visor to limit visibility.

Even after he’s checked that off his list, there’s no guarantee he will find a job that takes him into space.

“The chances of you being selected, even if you have the right credentials, could be quite low,” said Quine, who is part of efforts to build a so-called elevator to space.

But Persad, who says he made it past the first round of cuts in the CSA’s last open call, said, “I wouldn’t be doing this training if I didn’t think I would have a chance to get into space.”

If he gets there, is Persad worried about floating off, a la Sandra Bullock in Gravity?

Nope, but he is afraid of what will happen when he lands.

“You go to space, see the planets, see the Earth and you experience weightlessness. How do you top that?”

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